Reaching the bottom

“One definition of a bottom [for an alcoholic] is the point where the last thing you lost or the next thing you are about to lose is more important to you than the booze. That point is different for everyone, and some of us die before we get there.” -Alcoholics Anonymous, pg 425

I asked for a miracle then this happened…

My father just sent me an email. We haven’t talked since I think about October 2009.

I don’t talk to any of my family but he’s the one I feel the worst about. I did him wrong and I am ashamed.

I was just thinking about him and he writes me out of the blue. His subject line was “work, health, happiness” and he wanted to how I was getting along these days.

I’m was filling out an AA spreadsheet about all the people I have harmed. I was annoyed that it’s called Sex Conduct because I’ve hurt plenty people without sex being involved. And my dad is number one on that list.

Then my phone buzzes and I see his email. I burst into tears.

Wow. The universe is beautiful and scary, in an awe-inspiring way.

I don’t want to fuck this up. I’m not sure how to proceed.

Last night I asked for a miracle though I know I shouldn’t have. This is a miracle. I know it is, don’t even need to see how this will play out.

Making a searching and fearless spreadsheet inventory of myself, needing a miracle

I have started in on the Fourth Step spreadsheet on fear and it’s really confusing.

There are four columns yet you’re being asked to do five actions.

The third action asks, “Which part of self caused the fear?” but the third column asks in all caps how the fear AFFECTS my self. Are we dealing with cause or affect here?

I have problems with the fourth action:  “4. Referring to the list again, we put out of our minds the wrongs others had done and resolutely looked for our own mistakes-where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, frightened, inconsiderate?”

None of my fears were caused by the actions of others so no wrongs have been done to me. Also none of my fears were caused by my mistakes of being selfish, dishonest, self-seeking or inconsiderate. But why is “frightened” part of this self examination? Did being frightened cause my fear? Why yes it did, stupid spreadsheet. And I think being frightened by not having a job and not knowing where the next dollar is coming from is perfectly natural. Hell, I drank to numb myself from fear like this. Fear of danger keeps you away from poisonous snakes, cliffs and scary men with guns and a healthy fear of unemployment keeps you from living under bridges. There’s healthy fear that preserves your safety and then there’s neurotic fear that your closet may contain snakes or robbers.

My fear, nearly all of my fears, are related to economic insecurity. Not insecurity of not having enough or that I’m constantly one step away from being fired. I have a healthy fear over the fact that I have no job, no immediate nor near term source of income and I have $75 dollars to my name.

I’ve had some crazy and incompetent bosses but if I wasn’t a drunk who always tried to get by on excuses then I wouldn’t have had trouble with employment the last several years. My mistakes caused those problems in the past. They aren’t causing my inability to get hired now.

So my fear is natural and healthy and it’s there to keep me from being homeless.

Then there’s the fifth action: “Reading from left to right we now see the fear, the Cause, the part of Self affected, and the exact nature of the defect that allowed the fear to surface and block us from God’s will.”

My defect of alcoholism caused me to lose jobs in the past. Being selfish, dishonest, self-seeking or inconsiderate is not keeping me from being hired now. So that leaves the remaining defect being frightened. So fear caused my fear?

I’m close to losing it. Last week while riding my bike down the Interstate I caused a completely unnecessary fight with a tailgating 18-wheeler. For about have a second all that adrenaline felt good, the rage familiar, an old friend who had gotten me this far.

Ha. I’m an idiot. “Gotten me this far.”

God, I need a miracle.

I read in the Big Book that we should never ask God to help ourselves. Rather we should ask for relief from our problems so that we may better help others. That seems like a disingenuous con that God can easily see through to me. Is it just because that’s the spirit in which I offer this from a Step Three prayer, “Take away my difficulties, that my victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always.”

But I need a miracle, God. I’m fucking useless to others otherwise. Please help me.

Day 17: Waking up to a New Year instead of “coming to”

Happy Sober New Year! And it’s a glorious thing to awake with a smile rather than a groan.

From Blurred Forms: An Unsteady History of Drunkenness:

In 1677, Edward Bury, a former minister of Great Bolas in Shropshire, and a contemporary of Clarke, wrote at length about the ways alcohol distorted the body. He posed to the reader, “Consider also how much this Beastly sin of Drunkenness doth debauch, defile, deform the Body of man.” Drinking, Bury claimed, transformed the body–a perfect work of creation–by turning “the Nose, the Eyes, the Cheeks… red and pimpled, the Face swoln like a Bladder, the Countenance disturbed, writhen, and deformed.” To Bury, the most comparable creature to the drunkard was the swine, as drunkards seemed to take great pleasure in wallowing in their own vomit, dung, and the dirt. Drunkards even came to resemble swine by crawling about, after losing control over their ability to walk; though, while beasts are serviceable in this manner, Bury remarked, “the Drunkard [is] good for nothing but to spend and consume.”

16 days sober: born to ride

This resonates:

Before it incarnates, each soul enters into a sacred contract with the Universe to accomplish certain things. It enters into this commitment in the fullness of its being. Whatever the task that your soul has agreed to, all of the experiences of your life serve to awaken within you the memory of that contract, and to prepare you to fulfill it. – Gary Zukav

Every fork in the road lead me to here. It didn’t matter whether I went left or right. All roads lead to here and tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.

Day 13 sober, dealing with a specific fear

Day 13 of sobriety and I have $41 to my name. I have an outstanding invoice from a client that is a month over due. Each business day in December I’ve been hoping for that check to show up. Normally I’d have been consumed with worry but what I’ve been learning in AA has helped. Or more accurately, it’s helped to keep my fear at bay. But it’s still there.

I’m going to hit my knees now and say this prayer from page 86 of The Big Book:

God direct my thinking today so that it be divorced of self pity, dishonesty, self-will, self-seeking and fear. God inspire my thinking, decisions and intuitions. Help me to relax and take it easy. Free me from doubt and indecision. Guide me through this day and show me my next step. God give me what I need to take care of any problems. I ask all these things that I may be of maximum service to you and my fellow man. Amen.

Now I’m going to gear up against the cold and ride to a meeting.

The road to Hell

I found a god that knows my name.
And I found whiskey just the same.
– The Roosevelts

In my first AA meeting we discussed the god of our understanding and my first thought was, “This ain’t going to work.” hwy2hell

I had only recently come to terms with the fact that I was an atheist, that religion was the refuge of scoundrels and bigots, the stupid and the weak. If only, I thought, it could be so easy to just turn yourself over to god and then everything would work out. That opiate won’t work on me, said the man who drank himself to sleep every night for the last fifteen years.

Before I went to my first meeting I called “Gabe” (not his real name) and said, “I think I might be an alcoholic.” Gabe had been going to AA for 16 years and that’s in part why I called him. The last time I saw him he looked at me and said, “If you ever need anything, ANYTHING, call me.” And he meant it, I could see it in his eyes. So I called.

I called him again after my first meeting and told him that I had become an atheist over the years.

“Fat fuck a lot good that has done ya, huh?” he responded.

Less than twenty-four hours later, as I rode to my second meeting, I was already coming around to a God I could understand.

It all came back to my MC. All my power came from them. Joining the club transformed my life and I’ve never been a joiner. But I soon became like Knight Templar who had taken a solemn vow. They gave me a code to live by. I came to believe in the power of good works and the strength in community. Without them I never would have walked into my first AA meeting.

And when I walked in I said, “Hi, my name is “Nobody” (not my real road name) and I am alcoholic.” I that name because it is my sacred name given to me by tribe.

For now this is the God of my understanding — and I say this with the full knowledge that my understanding will probably evolve over time as I work the program.

It’s been three weeks since my first meeting. After the first one I began cutting down my drinking by a glass less every night. After 34 years of drinking, 15 very heavy, my doctor wanted me to quit with medical supervision inside a rehab because he was afraid that I’d have seizures and die if I quit cold turkey. That was back when I had a job and insurance, a wife and a step kid.

So I began cutting down. I started having nightmares immediately. My brain, starved of its usual chemical, threw me out of bed, screaming and panting, every night during the 4 o’clock hour.

Now I’m on my seventh day sober and the night before last I had the most vile sex dream involving the Devil. I’ll save that for a later post.

I’ll I know is that today I believe. Today I am sober. Today I read this Salon article:
Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith.

Then I went and listened to my favorite recording of Amazing Grace. I’ve been listening to that recording for years, usually during one of those dark nights of the soul, after too much wine and tears. It’s odd that an atheist starting seeking comfort in that song way back circa 1991, I think that was the first time. I’ll need to write about how the Rev. Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial saved my life later.